Lord and the Applemen (21-4) had a good showing in their first game in a week, beating a Hedgesville team that also hadn’t played in a week.

The second set was the tightest of all three, with the Applemen edging the Eagles by a 25-21 margin. Musselman won the first set 25-15 without much difficulty.

Lord helped Musselman jump out to a 6-1 lead in the second set with a pair of kills, but Hedgesville (13-5-1) battled back to take a 10-9 lead after scoring eight of the next 12 points. A kill by Maddy Butler put the score at 8-3, then, with Hayley Eppinger serving, the Eagles cut the deficit 8-6.

Later in the set, with Musselman ahead 9-7, Hannah Weaver put a kill down the left side and that was followed by a palming call on the Applemen to tie the game at 9-9. Hedgesville went ahead 10-9 thanks to a few key defensive plays, including a save by Butler in which she kept the ball alive on a diving attempt and got enough on it to allow a teammate to tip the ball over the net.

From there, Musselman extended its lead out to 21-13 before the Eagles made a run. With the score 23-14, Hedgesville won six straight points, with Eppinger serving again. A kill each by Megan Raney and Lord stopped the run and gave the Applemen the set.

It was a good set for the Eagles, both offensively and defensively.

“They started to pass the ball a little better in the second set,” Hedgesville coach Joy Vandine said.

“It’s something we’re trying to work on. They’d been off for a week, so I was happy with the way they were moving around, especially defensively.”

“We had a few bad rotations. They scored seven or eight points on one of our rotations,” Martz said. “We’ll go back and figure out what we need to fix.”

Musselman responded with a dominant third set, winning by a 25-10 score.

With the score 3-3, the Applemen reeled off nine straight points, with Lord notching four kills and block. Rebecca Kern had two kills during the run, and Autumn Bartles had two aces. After Hedgesville got the score to 12-5, Musselman strung together five straight points, with Kaitlin Ferretti recording back-to-back kills and Hannah Lewis getting a kill to move the lead to 17-5.

The Applemen finished off the set and match by scoring the final five points. Lexi Fritts had two kills to push Musselman to the win. In the third set, probably the Applemen’s best, Martz liked what he saw.

“We got into a little better rhythm offensively,” Martz said. “We passed and served well all night, I thought.”

Martz had high remarks for Kern, who had five kills, and Fritts, who had a perfect passing night. Also for Musselman, Ferretti had seven kills and 20 assists, Bartles 18 assists and Kaci Dove 11 digs.

For Hedgesville, Eppinger had six kills and Weaver five kills. Allyson Perrell and Victoria Lyons each had 11 digs and Taylor Fox 17 assists.